


Don't Cry At My Funeral

by Matloc



Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: AkaKuro Week, Akashi quoting Shakespeare, Cheesy, Existential Angst, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Literary References & Allusions, M/M, Tragedy, aokuro angst, don't worry no one dies, open-ended, oreshi - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-12
Updated: 2015-04-12
Packaged: 2018-03-22 14:09:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,830
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3731776
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Matloc/pseuds/Matloc
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kuroko is informed that he has at most a year of his life left, so he decides to confess to his crush as his sole bucket list wish. Important Warning: This fic contains bits of existential angst, so if you have lost someone dear to you and/or are suicidal, I ask that you please keep away from this story.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Cry At My Funeral

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for the AoKuro angst in this fic. I tried to make the AkaKuro fluff very cheesy so that it offsets the angst  ~~I TRIED LOL~~  I’m sorry if they’re too OOC. It’s hard to stay in character when someone you care about is going to die, so yeah /excuses Also, sorry for the literary references in this fic, aaand sorry for the purple prose near the end. 
> 
> I actually don’t think this fic is too angsty because my commentary is so flat  ~~AKA I have no talent~~

 

For a long time, the only sound occupying the white walls of the room is that of the clock ticking.

Kuroko supposes this is that momentary pause doctors allow you in order to let the bad news fully sink in. The blank expression on his face seems to make the man in the white coat nervous, but he is only waiting for the doctor to continue.

The weight of silence doesn’t dissipate even when the doctor clears his throat. “One year,” he predicts grimly, “Is the most I can guarantee.” He leans forward, resembling a solemn statue Kuroko once saw at a Renaissance museum. “Kuroko-kun, I recommend that you sign up for treatment immediately. If you want, shall we inform your parents together?”

Kuroko understands that the doctor is trying to be supportive, but he doesn’t see why the man looks like he’s just aged ten years. He was the one who told Kuroko it cannot be cured, so there’s no point in feeling guilty. This doctor is simply a messenger of death, not the purveyor.

It’s funny that for once it is the patient who wants to console the doctor.

Kuroko looks at the clock and stands up, pushing his chair back. “No, that’s fine. You can go ahead and inform them now. Thank you for everything, sensei.” He bows deeply. “If anyone asks for me, please tell them I went to get a vanilla shake.”

* * *

 

The basketball court has been left abandoned for quite some time now. Kuroko doesn’t know why he still comes here. Nostalgia, perhaps.

He stares past the court, at the empty park standing behind it, whose rusted swings and slides now only carry dilapidated memories of a childhood he sometimes wishes he could relive. Things were much simpler back then.

He takes a sip of his vanilla shake and grimaces. It tastes bitter today for some reason.

“Tetsu!”

Kuroko turns around to see Aomine bent over, panting like he’s just run a marathon. He bites back the urge to smile, it’s been a while since he’s seen Aomine like this. Tired and out of breath.  _Nostalgic_ , Kuroko thinks.

Aomine straightens up and, in the broad daylight, it is impossible to not notice his cheeks. How they are glistening wet.  _“Cancer?”_  he echoes what Kuroko has heard several times today, only this time it sounds more like static from a broken radio than the mechanical drone of a professional diagnosis. “Really, Tetsu?  _You_ , of all people? No way, man—” The cage fence rattles harshly against Aomine’s fist, making Kuroko flinch. “There’s no fucking way.”

Kuroko forgot Aomine was with him when he collapsed two weeks ago. His parents told him that Aomine, stubborn mule that he was, wouldn’t leave his side even when the ambulance came. Stayed as close as possible to Kuroko night and day near the ICU, until the doctor personally came to drag him away with the promise of intimating his prognosis to him. And when Kuroko woke from his medically-induced coma, when countless tests were run on his body, Aomine was the first one to be informed of his condition.

He completely shut down after that, spending the rest of the days like a living ghost, and Kuroko realizes that this is probably his first real reaction to the news. Now that Kuroko is discharged, Aomine is letting all his pent up frustration out. Kuroko allows it.

“Fuck!” he bangs at the steel fence again, and Kuroko fears he might punch a hole through it.

But he stays silent at Aomine’s outburst, his eyes roaming towards the old basketball hoop behind the tanned boy. The years have weathered it down until it's hunched like a weak old man. Kuroko remembers all the magnificent dunks by Aomine, how amazing it was to hear the hoop creak dangerously with Aomine’s weight. If they play a match right now like the old times, Kuroko wonders whether the hoop will come crashing down this time.

Much like the fate of their friendship.

Maybe, if this was two years ago, Kuroko would have understood Aomine’s pain and anger. But this is the present, and he believes the taller boy is overreacting.

“It’s okay, Aomine-kun.” He tries to reassure his… well, there was no word for ‘them’ now. It’s been long lost and buried within the sands of time like a cursed tomb. Never to be found again.

Aomine should know there is no use trying to dig up something that no longer has any remains.

“Okay? What is okay about any of this?” he directs his red-rimmed glare at Kuroko now, who feels more piqued than confused at the wasted tears. He shrugs and takes another sip of his milkshake.

Aomine inhales harshly.

“Why are you so… calm? Goddammit Tetsu this is not a… a joke.” He gasps and his voice breaks and he grips at his unruly hair. Kuroko frowns.

“If it was a joke I’m sure the doctor would have been fired already,” he says thoughtfully. Aomine looks like he really wants to hit him.

He’s about to say something but then his eyes catch sight of the Majiba shake in Kuroko’s hand, and the blank look on his face, and he sighs instead. “I can’t believe you…” he mutters in honest shock. He sounds weak and tired and Kuroko feels a twist in his stomach, which he finds to be a meaningless thing to feel after all this time. “Just—I can’t look at you right now, Tetsu, I’m sorry. Come see me after you’ve finally realized the situation you’re in right now.” There’s a myriad of other, more brutal things Aomine wants to say right now, but his jaw trembles painfully under the weight of unbridled emotions that sting the corner of his eyes. He clenches it shut and stomps out of the court.

Kuroko thinks this is just like two years ago, Aomine walking away from the court, from him. He also thinks it is unfair that he has to see it happen all over again.

Kuroko is the one who understands very well that he doesn’t have much time left. A year has never seemed so short before. But nothing has changed with this revelation. Nothing significant anyway. 

He doesn’t hate his life. His family loves him and school tends to be uneventful, just the way he prefers it. But that is where his biography ends. There is nothing to append to a life encased in a cage of ennui and disillusion. Unlike Aomine, he never managed to find his passion. Books are more of a hobby. Studying is more of a habit.

And he hasn’t touched a basketball in years.

He has no desire to die, but he has nothing to live for either. He has no trophies, no achievements, no recognition to boast about. He knows he won’t be leaving much of anything behind. He is fine with that.

It won’t make much of a difference to others either. The wounds will heal with time. His parents have each other. Aomine has Momoi, and if Kuroko were given the option to entrust Aomine to someone, it would definitely be his loyal childhood friend.

The world will live on even after he’s gone, so it’s a waste to cry over things that will be forgotten with time. All he feels is an emptiness floating in the chambers of his lungs, but that has always been there from the very start. He doesn’t see why Aomine can’t understand that.

How can Kuroko cry over losing a life he’s never lived?

He looks back at the desolate playground, all vivid colors washed away with dead memories of a childhood he can’t go back to. He thinks about Aomine; he thinks about how things were much simpler back then.

* * *

 

The end of the world will arrive much earlier at Kuroko’s doorstep than for anyone else. So it’s only fair that he takes the liberty to do something last-minute crazy, like in those doomsday movies.

Something like putting a love letter in Akashi Seijuurou’s desk.

He feels like a maiden schoolgirl at the moment, but he only has Akashi to blame.

They met through a mutual friend, Midorima. Through a sadistic twist of fate, they got off on the wrong foot, with Akashi making a blasé remark  about Kuroko's athletic prowess—or lack, thereof. But Akashi has always had this charismatic pull to him. It isn’t something raw and dazzling like what Aomine has, yet it still leaves Kuroko speechless whenever Akashi graces him with a smile.

And with another twist of fate, once they started talking they couldn’t stop anymore. Their meetings became frequent after that, and Kuroko learned more about Akashi than he had ever expected to.

Like how he is being groomed to take over his father’s business. That explains the charming smiles and the aristocratic-gentleman demeanor. It’s still rather sad to hear about someone’s future being decided for them, but Akashi takes it in stride.

He mentioned it as an off-handed remark, but Kuroko could tell that it was a very important matter for him. Akashi plans to become a professional shogi player. He says he’s currently in the middle of convincing his father to release his hold on him, and though it’s a rather taxing task, he is adamant in his confidence that his father will learn to see things his way.

Kuroko knows that it is inappropriate, but he still feels jealous. Not of Akashi’s fortune, but rather his immense fortitude. There is something strong and resilient about his personality that strikes at Kuroko’s heart like a resounding drum. It leaves an impression of Akashi’s boundless passion for the thing he loves across the sinew of his own disenchanted world. How Kuroko wishes he had something he could pour his life into like Akashi does. How Akashi is an unstoppable twister that changes the direction of the wind around it as it dances in ceaseless fervor. While Kuroko is but a leaf being carried away by a breeze to a destination he does not know, much less care for.

How Akashi is everything he’s not, and everything he wants to be. That realization is what tipped over the cusp of his reverence, making it fall into a river of ardor that courses through his veins like lifeblood.

So here he is, writing out a quote from one of his favorite poets in immaculate cursive, because his literary idols deserve the best, but most of all because Akashi deserves nothing less than the best.

 

 

> _I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where. I love you simply, without problems or pride: I love you in this way because I do not know any other way of loving but this, in which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close._

He slides it into Akashi’s desk and pops back into the seat beside it, feeling the morning breeze caress his hair. If there was one good thing about being in the advanced classes, it is that his seat is right next to the red-haired enigma.

Akashi doesn’t notice it immediately. Not until he takes out his textbook after class has started. The paper slips out of the space between two other books, and Akashi, with his in-born reflexes, catches it with ease.

He unfolds the paper and Kuroko swallows down the rime of anxiety that strikes him out of nowhere. He remembers listing his favorite poets to Akashi once, but surely the boy hasn’t memorized the entire library of recommendations Kuroko has given him from just one light-hearted conversation.

But all his thoughts are wiped clean when Akashi finishes reading his clandestine confession and he smiles. Not the polite, well-mannered smile he’s trained to receive his fellow peers with.

Kuroko can tell by the way the corner of his eyes crinkle, by the light puff of air that escapes his lips, by the way his lips curl so wonderfully into a perfect arc that Kuroko believes he might just see a beautiful blue moon wax upon the edge of his smile.

He hides a gasp when Akashi’s eyes flit towards him for a single second. And just that moment is enough to drive him nuts with paranoia that the cover of his Pablo Neruda collection might be peeking out of his own desk, but whenever he looks down he only sees it hidden snugly with the rest of his books.

By the end of class, he ends up dismissing that notion. He isn’t prepared for the pang of regret that follows. He should have at least signed it with his name. Rather, he should have just approached him with a normal confession, maybe at the rooftop like he once saw in one of the light novels Mayuzumi-senpai often reads.

What was he doing—trying to gauge Akashi’s feelings for him by means of some literary circumlocution, banking on the hope that the redhead may have remembered some meager detail that was nonchalantly mentioned only once, and then never again.

He brushes off the thought by the end of the day. Even if, by some impossible chance, his feelings were reciprocated.

What good would it do when his fate is already inscribed in a haggard tome with no more than 365 pages?

So he instead recalls how Akashi seemed a bit more amicable for the rest of the day. Akashi is quite popular for the rare glimpses of a gentle countenance hidden underneath the shell of his stern exterior, but today it seemed more genuine than ever before.

Requited feelings or not, Kuroko confers he has done something right. Even if it is just for a day, he’s made Akashi just a little bit happier.

Just that is enough for Kuroko.

'Making Akashi smile’ is the only achievement he wants to frame in gold in his life’s hall of fame. The only one he needs. It may never be recognized but as long as it stays in the reef of his own thoughts right before he passes on, his life will have amounted to something.

That is all he needs.

So when he reaches his seat the very next day right before the morning bell rings, he is completely floored by what he spots in the hollow of his desk.

He holds the piece of paper with a trembling heart, but his fingers are steady as he reads it because he wants absolutely nothing to ruin this moment.

 

 

>   
>  _And it is very much lamented,_  
>  _That you have no such mirrors as will turn_  
>  _Your hidden worthiness into your eye  
>  _ _That you might see your shadow._

>   
>    
>  _And since you know you cannot see yourself_  
>  _So well as by reflection, I, your glass,_  
>  _Will modestly discover to yourself  
>  _ _That of yourself which you yet know not of._

Kuroko doesn’t even need to know how terribly he is blushing because the wicked smile Akashi offers from his right speaks volumes on how pleased he is with the reaction.

This only scares Kuroko. Because if his heart skips a beat every time Akashi looks at him like that, or every time he quotes  _Shakespeare_ , Kuroko might end up six feet under sooner than expected.

He hides his face in his arms, smushed against the cool desk, and Akashi turns back to the teacher, a fond grin playing at the corner of his lips.

Kuroko opts to stare out the window instead. He looks up and is awestruck.

This is the first time in his life he’s received more than what he’s needed. All he wanted was a memory of Akashi’s smile, but now, his hopes have risen and dashed all the way to the ends of the earth and higher.

And for the first time in his life, he looks up and he confesses, but more than that he  _prays_  to the stars hiding behind the bright blue sky:

_I don’t want to die._

* * *

 

**OMAKE**

“Aomine-kun.” Kuroko breathes out. His lungs feel like they are going to be crushed within Aomine’s vice-like grip, but the taller boy only hugs him tighter.

“Tetsu,” Aomine can hardly breathe under the weight of his tears, “I’m sorry.” He whispers into a quivering shoulder. “Just—please, don’t die on me, buddy.  _Don’t die, Tetsu_.” There’s a hitch in his voice and it cracks as he chokes on his own breath, but he repeats that phrase like a desperate mantra over and over like it’s Kuroko he’s praying to.

Kuroko feels the ridge of his shoulder getting wet and he knows his own face is drenched and splotchy with tears.

A year feels so short now, but the two years without his best friend felt like an eternity. And it is after an eternity that he realizes, as Aomine’s powerful frame quakes with violent sobs, that perhaps Kuroko was the only one who assumed their friendship was over.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> I can’t write angst without turning it into a soap opera, oh god. I’m really sorry for the shitty omake guise that was a last minute addition. 
> 
> I’m not sure most people will recognize the title, but the fic is inspired by the song  _Life Is Beautiful_ (Acoustic version) by Sixx A.M. The concept is that Kuroko feels his life has no meaning/worth because he hasn’t done anything particularly great, so now that he’s found out he’s going to die, he wants to do at least one good deed (making Akashi happy) before he poofs.
> 
> Anyway,  **Akashi’s quote is an abridged version from Julius Caesar**. It’s not a love confession by any means. Cassius is basically telling Brutus that he’ll be his mirror and reflect all the good qualities Brutus himself is not aware of. I chose this quote because the Kuroko in this fic sees nothing remarkable about himself (hence his existential nihilism) so Akashi promising to be his mirror is a pretty big deal.
> 
>  
> 
> ~~The last time I made Bakashi quote Shakespeare, people seemed to enjoy it or at least they found it mildly amusing, so yes I’m sorry for pulling this shit again.~~


End file.
